Expecting Gujarat Chief Minister’s Narendra Modi’s magic to work in Karnataka was stupid.
The BJP, clearly on the back foot at the end of a disastrous five-year reign in the State, desperately tried this last resort and failed. Enthused by the tremendous response to Modi’s first rally in Bangalore, he was persuaded to address two more meetings in urban Karnataka.
When the Karnataka voters spoke, they rejected the BJP and ushered in the Congress, with 120 seats, eight above the required majority. Though it has got 40 seats over its 2008 tally, the Congress has not exactly swept Karnataka, as J. Jayalalithaa did Tamil Nadu, Mamata did West Bengal and Akhilesh Yadav Uttar Pradesh. That is because as Karnataka went to the polls, two Congress ministers at the Centre were in the dock over interfering with the CBI and corruption in the Railway Ministry.
In Karnataka corruption, misgovernance, infighting and finally former Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyyurappa forming the KJP to not only split the BJP but also its vote bank, lost the BJP the only southern State in its kitty.
As counting began and the trends emerged, the ferocity with which knives were out for Modi was surprising. Of course, all Congress leaders on various channels gleefully taunted the BJP on the Modi magic wand failing to save them in Karnataka. No surprise there. But the vehemence with which anchors on TV channels and their journalist guests pounced on hapless BJP leaders, urging them to “admit” that Modi did not have all-India appeal, was a little over the top.
Karnataka was a State election fought on local issues related to both corruption and lack of governance. In the last few years Bangalore has worn the face of a city in decay, be it road maintenance, traffic management or garbage removal.
In a State with high literacy and a young urbanised work force, the frequent moral policing by goons of the Ram Sene who attacked pubs and manhandled young women in Mangalore was highly resented. The vote is the weapon of the people and the BJP lost not only Mangalore but the whole State as well.
Now to expect Modi to parachute into Karnataka and clear up the mess his BJP colleagues had created was asking for the moon. After all public memory is not that short to wipe out murky images of several corruption charges against Yeddyurappa, the dilly-dallying on his removal as well as a response to the Reddy Brothers’ scam and the involvement of a top BJP leader at the Centre to protect the mining barons. And of course the changing of chief ministers.
But the problem is that Modi’s diehard fans, in and outside Gujarat, can’t accept a spade being called a spade when their hero is concerned.
So when I wrote in these columns last fortnight that the Modi magic won’t work in Karnataka where a local election was being fought on local issues, the column attracted a lot of ire.
Rude questions were raised on the religious label my name suggests, the “one sided drivel” I write, my “pathological hatred” for Modi. One reader asked me to “stick to Tamil Nadu politics”. Another was so incensed that frothing at the mouth he threw a challenge: “Will you apply shoe polish on your face and post a photo of it next to your column when it is proved that Modi’s Magic has worked wonders in Karnataka?” For Congress, it was a bitter sweet victory. If Karnataka can reject BJP’s corruption and misgovernance today, the nation can follow suit in the Lok Sabha polls tomorrow.
rasheeda.bhagat@thehindu.co.in
The vehemence with which anchors on TV channels and their journalist guests pronounced that Modi did not have all-India appeal, was a little over the top.